I love writing. I revere the use of language as an instrument for seeking the truth about life. My books are downloadable and the paperback editions will be appearing soon. Click on the links at the right side of this page. Peruse this blog, it's loaded with music, photography and writing. Hey, sign up for my email list!

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Predators In The Crowd-funding World

Two
weeks ago I launched my second crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo. I've been taken by surprise by the number of
new businesses that have sprung up in the wake of the crowd-funding phenomena. Most of these are Public Relations firms who
promise to manage my campaign, disseminate press releases, boost my Facebook
"Likes" and bring my project such great success that I'll double and
triple my fundraising goals. My first
campaign went through Fundly. It was
pretty successful. I got my e-book
published on Smashwords. The funds paid
for formatting a long book. All the
hyperlinks are in place, the Table Of Contents can be clicked to beam the
reader to the chapter of choice. The
Fundly campaign and subsequent e-publishing with Smashwords was a great
experience.

Yesterday
I got the first of several offers that carry an obvious stink. It was said by Barnum that a sucker is born
every minute. He left out the
corollary. Also born every minute is an
opportunist or a predator who will wring that sucker dry of his last dime. This is what I was offered: "Pay me five dollars," said the
emailer, "and I will donate one dollar to your campaign and mention you on
a Facebook page and leave a link to your fundraiser."

I read
it two or three times. Oh. How clever.
I followed the link back to the website. It was hosted by Fiverr.com.
If you don't know, Fiverr is an internet marketplace specializing in
Five Dollar "gigs", as they're called. Services or performances are offered, such as "For five
dollars I will make a video for your child's birthday featuring my puppet,
'Adam Baumtester'. On-time delivery guaranteed." I have no problem with
funny puppets or any kind of low-cost service. There's something mildly sleazoid
about exploiting a struggling artist, taking five dollars and charging me four of those dollars to get my name onto a Facebook page whose
address I don't know. Since yesterday
I've gotten yet more offers. The next
one wanted two dollars for mention of my fundraiser on his unspecified Facebook
and Twitter accounts. How fast do I
have to bail my boat to keep it from sinking?
How much water is leaking into the boat in proportion to how much water
I've dumped over the side with my little old tablespoon?

I've
been solicited by companies with higher profiles and higher fees. Crowdzilla.com has several
"packages" that run from two to five hundred dollars and offer comprehensive PR deals that involve mainstream press releases, targeted
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and other Social Media. I have marveled for twenty years at the way
new jobs have been created by technology, jobs whose descriptions would have
been incomprehensible in the sixties of seventies. When i wonder what kind of work my grandchildren may be doing
when they grow up I accept that the job descriptions may not yet exist and will
emerge in time.

When we
were young hippies and yuppies, did we have a clue? Did we expect to become webmasters, software developers, internet
marketers? When my seven year old
grandson comes of age, he may be going to a school that lies yet unborn in some
East Bay park, a place doomed to a
bulldozer mauling and the crush of concrete as it becomes The Saul Stoofner
School of Nano-Cellular Osmosis.

It's
possible. Everything is possible
in this fairyland of a planet gripped by
climate change and overpopulated to the extent that a
mass die-off of homo sapiens may become a necessity if we are to
survive at all.

I am convinced
that we will survive. The species of
man is evolving, quickly. The young
ones are different, their bodies are more flexible, their brains more
accessible to nature's innovations.
Human life will continue. After
the darkness comes the change. I just
wish nature had a mechanism for culling the assholes among us and sparing those
with kind hearts and willing minds.

About Me

A Midwesterner by birth, I migrated to the West Coast just in time to be a hippie but discovered that I related better to the Beatniks. I harkened back to an "old school" world of hard bop, Coltrane, jazz, poetry, painting and photography. A large part of my life went "off the rails" and I experienced the reality of the streets for too long. Putting myself back together was the defining experience of my life so far. It wasn't easy. It did, however, nurture the writer in me. I have written novels, memoirs, poems, humorous fake emails, and commercials

for ridiculous non existent products. I have a passion for astronomy, history, psychology, the pure abstract absurdity of human experience (what the hell is it?). My partner is an honest to god Animal Communicator, as nutty as that may sound to some people. She is the real deal. She also suffers from Fibro and it's a curse with which we must work every day. Come visit my blog and